Page 27 - CL winter 2023 for web

home life

huge number of people are About the images:
categorised as deprived of their Grace Currie was
liberty in care homes. commissioned to
create artworks
The problem is that we regularly to reflect social
conflate “homes” with “institutions”. care detention
We hope that, by calling a place a
home, it sets us apart from our
carceral past yet, often, the inner
dynamics remain institutional.
This presents problems for courts
and regulators in deciding whether
a place is a private home or
regulated premises.
It also means that, as community
living advocates, we need to think
deeply and carefully about what we
mean by “ordinary homes”.

omes and institutions are ask: does this person enjoy privacy, these are simulacra; no amount of
different kinds of and have the freedom to make carefully positioned doilies and
Hjurisdictional space. everyday decisions and control the knick-knacks can replicate the
Jurisdiction means the power to threshold? Who, ultimately, makes subtle, complex and idiosyncratic
speak the law – that is, to lay down the rules in this place? aesthetics of a genuine home.
or interpret and apply the rules. Home is also a place of belonging
Homes are quasi-sovereign and rootedness. In contrast, What is a home?
jurisdictions, where those living in institutions tear up our roots and So what, then, is a home, and how
them lay down the rules: an can restrict, threaten or even sever does it differ from an institution?
Englishman’s home is his castle. our critical relationships. The difference does not lie in the
Institutions are governed by If we want a place to be a real buildings, nor in legal or regulatory
authorities, not those living in them. home, we should ask whether the status, nor in what other people
This is illustrated by the person is living with others they want to call it. Homes, as I argue in
Rampton smokers’ case (R (N) v want relationships with, are able to my book, are critical decision
Secretary of State for Health, R (E) enjoy other critical relationships spaces for the flourishing of the self.
v Nottinghamshire Healthcare fully and are free to form new They are places where we are can
NHS Trust [2009] EWCA Civ 795). relationships and offer hospitality. critical decisions about where we
Patients in high-security Rampton And is their home in a live, who we live with and who
Hospital challenged the smoking community or truly part of one? comes into our home to support us
ban, arguing that the hospital was Homes are critical spaces for – the kinds of decisions reflected in
their home so they should be expressing and sustaining identity. the right to independent living
allowed to smoke there. Yet, in care settings, we talk about under the Convention on the Rights
Judges were sympathetic but personalising somebody’s space of Persons with Disabilities – as well
observed that the freedom to do as (usually just their bedroom) as the everyday micro-decisions
one pleased varied depending on precisely because of the that make up our lives, our selves.
where one was. Although an background assumption of Being able to make critical
activity might be protected from depersonalised, institutional spaces. decisions brings a sense of privacy,
arbitrary interferences in a private Nobody living in a regular home safety, connectedness and belonging.
home, similar protection would not talks about personalising their Even people who are unable to
apply to patients in public hospitals. bedroom. Yet there is an entire decide under mental capacity law
Homes are associated with industry devoted to making care still have agency. They can still
autonomy, privacy and a locus of services look more homely. But express what brings them happiness,
control. People living at home connection and a sense of safety.
decide who invite in and have the They still weave patterns of
freedom to come and go as they meaning into the world around
please. Small, everyday choices, In care settings, we talk about them. A meaningful home for
such as smoking, are important. It them – as for everyone – is living
is well documented that the personalising space precisely because arrangements that reflect and
erosion of such micro-choices is of a background assumption of sustain that. n
damaging to wellbeing and health. depersonalised, institutional spaces
So, when deciding whether a Lucy Series is a lecturer at the School
place is really a home, we should for Policy Studies, University of Bristol

Community Living winter 2023 vol 36 no 2 27